


Five Times Steve Rogers Almost Dated and One Time He did

by Winterstar



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-08-23
Packaged: 2017-12-24 09:56:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/938587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exactly what is on the tin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Steve Rogers Almost Dated and One Time He did

1.

It isn’t like Bucky is a masked villain dressed in all black with oversized guns trying to kill him or anything like that. Truly, if he really thinks about it Bucky just has his best interest at heart. He always does. Steve leans over his dresser with its three drawers and tiny mirror. His nose is still bleeding from the recent beating he took and his head kinds of hurts still. He cleans it up. He’s not even going to think about his lungs, the less thinking the better in that arena. He should just tell Bucky he wants to stay in tonight, but he can’t. This is Bucky’s last night before he ships out, before he gets to do his duty for his country. He owes Bucky this much. If Bucky is willing to sacrifice, to lay down his life to protect and serve, then Steve can, at the very least, go on a double date with him.

Still, Steve thinks Bucky might have an alter ego somewhere that relishes in tormenting Steve, and dresses like an arch villain. He stifles his laughter and re-arranges his hair one more time. Maybe this will be the time; maybe he’ll have that date. The girl might be nice, might overlook his shortcomings, might not mind when he wheezes in the cold night air. Maybe, she’ll be like a nurse or something wanting to take care of him.

Geez, now he’s hoping for his mother and that just about turns him green with disgust. He really has to get his head screwed on straight. He picks up his tie and slips it around his neck. Picking up his collar, Steve knots the double and then tightens it up. He flips down his collar and pats the tie. 

“Hey, you comin’ in there or what? Getting all fancy pants?”

Steve rolls his eyes, grabs his wallet, and keys from his dresser, and meets Bucky in the main room of their walkup. It isn’t a great apartment and once Bucky leaves, Steve will either have to find a new roommate or a new place. He can’t foot the bill on his own wages. A two room apartment is expensive. He can probably find a room in someone’s house somewhere, he’s sure. Putting the thoughts away for another day, he smiles as he closes the bedroom door.

“Really, sport?”

“I really wish you wouldn’t call me that,” Steve says and stuffs his wallet in his pocket. He thinks he has about a buck fifty which isn’t bad since it is the middle of the week. 

As they leave the apartment, Bucky takes the lead and does a two skip hop down the four flights up. Steve doesn’t – he can’t. Going down is always easier than going up, but dancing up and down the stairs is something he avoids, especially since he likes breathing so much more than dancing. That statement isn’t entirely true, or he can’t really verify it as true since he’s never been dancing at all. Bucky keeps trying though.

He frowns as they leave the building.

Bucky is a secret villain bent on torturing him, probably killing him in some cruel way, like making him meet girls and trying to force him to go dancing. It all seems so innocent and nice, until someone gets their feet stepped on, or some girl realizes he’s not looking at her at all. 

He’s looking at Bucky.

“What?” Bucky says and knocks him in the arm. 

“Nothing,” Steve says and shrugs. Definitely a secret villain meant to torture him in some way.

2.  
One of the youngest of the showgirls, her name is Mary, likes Steve. She’s kind and shy and spends too much time biting her nails. Sometimes between shows on the bus they sit together. He doesn’t know what to say to her, and she doesn’t know what to say to him. Mary likes to do cross stitch (or that’s what she called it in a nervous giggle) on the bus as they ride endlessly from city to city. He offers to hold her threads and untangles them as she goes. Her cheeks redden in color when he comments on how pretty the stitching is. As he turns away and looks at the bundle of spools in his lap, he cannot get the thought out of his head of Bucky and his unit, the one o seventh fighting and dying for him. Someone is there with them, stitching up their wounds and what is he doing? He's a dancing monkey.

He tries not to resent everyone and everything about his situation. He puts his best foot forward, because his mother always taught him to. He never wants to let her down, even if she isn't here to see him. He wants to make her proud, but what would she think? What would Bucky think? The thought of Bucky looking at him with a cocky grin and throwing sarcastic remarks at him forces him to both cringe and smile at the same time. Often he'll look at himself in the small mirror in the motels they stay at and see this new body and think how he should be defending the country. He thinks how he is letting everyone down.

He is letting down a good man, a scientist who believed in him enough to convince a Colonel to introduce him into the ranks of his unit. The SSR unit left without him and now he's stuck in some freak side show. He swallows down his self-pity and he does the shows night after night as the senator tells him to do. He performs, he makes cheesy movies, and smiles his way through kissing babies. He hates himself a little more every day, but he does it because he has to, he has to do something for the war effort and this is what he has been given. He doesn't want to be a lab rat, but he wonders if being a dancing monkey is any better. 

In some ways he tries to take pride in what he does, he is raising money for the effort and that is always so important. He tries to think of it as working for the friends – friend -he has overseas. He’s not even sure if he has more than one. He wonders if Peggy would have called him a friend. He knew her for too short a time, but she listened and looked at him like a real person, even before the experiment turned him into a stranger.

Mary giggles when she’s nervous. She giggles a lot, and she wears glasses when she’s not on stage. They are thick and round and her eyes look too big when she’s wearing them. He thinks she’s a swell kind of gal, but he hasn’t the faintest idea what to say to her. When they pull up to the motel each night he helps the bus driver unload their luggage. All the girls click together and it scares him a little to be so inundated by so much femininity. Bucky would have known what to do. He hasn’t the slightest clue in the world. 

The girls eventually huddle together and find the nearest diner for dinner. He drifts behind them and when they are seated at a table he slips onto a stool at the counter. Mary waves to him from her place at a booth and the other girls laugh behind their hands. He’ll never get used to it, their secret stares and whispered words. When the night comes he lies in his motel room alone in the heat of the summer staring at the ceiling and listening to the creak of the fan overhead.

He’s so hot and everything is so off-kilter that sometimes he thinks he might be in one of those fun houses at Coney Island with the strange mirrors and tilted floors. Mary is a nice girl he tells himself. He should ask her to dinner one night, he should try. Instead, he jerks himself to fruition while he thinks of Bucky’s blue eyes instead of Mary’s large brown ones.

He rolls over and buries his head in his pillow trying to hide from himself and the outside world.

 

3.  
They danced around each other, if that is what you call it. It is playful and fun and he smiles too much. It all had to end at some time. For a short time being in the middle of Italy, attacking bases in Austria, and throwing a wrench in the plans of a mad man rushes by him in a kind of crazy way blending together just like all the different cities would when he was on tour. The Howling Commandos follow him into danger and, for some reason, he feels invincible because they are invincible. This new body, his new body never fails him. He can take the strain, the push, and the beatings now. He doesn’t need Bucky or anyone else to step in and save him. He’s become the leader.

He’s gone from national icon to a strategist and Captain in a blink of an eye. As they crowd around the war room with its large map and troop movements laid out, Steve notices the passing glance from Peggy. She concentrates, fixates on her work, but every now and again, she looks his way and there’s something playing on the edge of her lips. He thinks of those lips, those red blushed lips and her thick dark hair. He likes to think of her, and what she might feel like. He wonders what the tangles of her hair might feel like, how the silk of it would fall into the palm of his hand. When he considers this, when he lies on his cot in his room at the base the coil of desire churns heavy in his belly. He takes himself in hand, the weight of it too hot, too much to control. He allows himself this passage, a permission to release the tension of the war, of the battles, by thinking of his gal. He comes with a cry on his lips.

Tears fill his eyes when he realizes he hadn’t called her name, but his instead. He’s embarrassed and ashamed. He doesn’t look at either Bucky or Peggy the next day. He’s sullen which is not his normal routine. They know something is up but he avoids their questions until the Howling Commandos get their next assignment. 

Zola.

They have intercepted a message that infers Zola will be on a specific train in Austria. They don’t have much time. The Commandos bug out. 

They come back with Zola, but one soldier short. They come back with their target and everything which could help them win the war, but he lost everything that would help him survive the war. Sitting in the burned out club, he swigs back the drink and experiences the burn, and wishes for so much more. She finds him, of course. She is the first person and last person he wants to find him. 

He spends the rest of the evening speaking about Bucky, talking and filling the air with pictures of his lost friend. She sits quietly next to him, her hand placed over his and it feels like forever while it feels like no time at all. He understands what pity is, but she does not hold it for him. What she offers him is something pure and precious. She offers him solace in the burnt out embers of his life.

4.  
The fourth time he almost dates, he knows he will never actually make the date. It is for Saturday, at the Stork Club at eight o’clock. He promises to dance, to get the band to play something real slow. He hears her voice beg him not to be late and there’s everything deep in his heart and in his courage to tell her he would never think to be late. He would promise her the world if he could.

In the moments after, when the plane crashes down and crashes in and his breath is stolen away and the pain flashes like the brilliance of the sun through every nerve ending, in those moments he thinks he could have loved her. He thinks he would have liked to have danced. But no one told him about this side, about how being a good man sometimes means death and cold ice, and that sacrifice is part of acceptance. 

No one told him he would miss growing up and growing old. No one told him that being a super soldier didn’t mean that there wouldn’t be pain. The pain expands and, with each breath, grows colder. It is like cold ice on the tips of numb fingers. It hurts and pierces and he falls into it and accepts it. This is who he is after all. He’s Captain America. He’s give up his life when they injected him with the serum when the vita-rays forced his bones to grow and his muscles to stretch. 

He gave up going on his first date when he became a man with a destiny. He gave up on love when he stripped himself of Steve Roger’s frail body and transformed into Captain America.

5.  
He never thinks of the first few hours after he woke up. Sure the race and battle through the streets was harrowing and frightening. It felt like he’d been dropped into a futuristic movie. The loud noises, the stench, the people – all the people in their array of colors and clothes and faces – all staring at him, studying him. He never thinks of those times because it would only cause the panic to return.

Instead, he spends his time in the quiet corners of New York. He finds that he can sit in his apartment for hours and stare at the file folders. He peels through the pages and looks at the faces – they are long since dead – most of them. He flips to Peggy’s page and smiles. She’s alive but he won’t call her, not today. He sets the folder aside and looks at the folder for Howard Stark. It has an addendum to it, Howard had a son. Brilliant and brash just like Howard. In some ways, Steve doesn’t see Howard as the family type man, cannot see him as settling down and being an attentive father. He wonders about the son.

He moves onward, searching around and seeing how different the world has become with him in it. He travels the streets of New York trying to get the feel of the future, his new present, inside of him. Anytime he went someplace new in Europe during the war he always needs to get the feel of the place. He liked to just bask in it for a few days (if they weren’t raiding or attacking it). He liked to know the place with the thickness of the air, the covering of the sky, the color of the clouds. Every place is different; every place owns its character.

So he treats New York City like it is a new place, like he hasn’t lived here the whole of his life. He walks the streets, rides the subway, and eats at cafes. He often sits at one with round tables and a good view of the city’s architecture. He scribbles doodles on napkins and listens to the other people at the tables talk. What he notices the most is that people will sit with their companion at lunch or mid-afternoon. They speak but they always have their little pocket phones on the table – as if the phones represent a third and fourth person joining them. The people often talk but their eyes are not on their companion, their eyes fall to the phone and they tap and play with it. He finds it irritating and annoying. He doesn’t like it much. 

He likes to sit near the older people, because they pay attention to the person they are accompanying. They spend time enjoying companionship and cherishing it. He wonders if these younger folks know what they are missing spending so much time waiting for someone else on the line to answer them while they are ignoring the person right there, across the table from them. He frowns.

At least the waitress pays attention. She’s always sweet and happy to see him. He thinks her name might be Amy or Beth but he can’t be sure. She offers him a free dessert or a coffee and he only takes the coffee. She smiles at him and tells him there’s free wifi – but he has no idea what the heck she’s even referring to. Half the words in modern day English throw him for a loop.

The old man next to him scoffs and tells him to ask her out on a date. Can he date someone when he’s so behind the times? He ignores the sage advice and just gets the coffee to go. Maybe there’s something to be said for those little phones, at least people would ignore him and he would be left alone.

The only thing is – he doesn’t want to be alone anymore. He’s almost glad when this strange Loki fella appears on the scene. At least he can fight, at least he can put knuckles to abdomen or to face and feel the crunch of bones. At least he has some purpose.

Until he doesn’t.

+1.  
Somewhere around the fourth of July, he finds himself standing in the middle of the penthouse at Stark Tower with Tony pinning a flower to his lapel. He thinks he might be sweating enough to completely dehydrate a small country in what they call Southeast Asia now. Tony plays with the flower a bit, twisting it this way and that way before he’s satisfied with the ending result. He pats it and then smiles up at Steve.

“Ready?”

Steve steps from foot to foot and looks around the very empty penthouse. “Um, I thought this was team event.”

“Event, yes,” Tony grins. “Team, not so much.”

“Why do people do that these days?” Steve says and follows Tony to the elevator. It still floors him that elevators don’t need an operator anymore. 

“Do what?”

“Talk in punctuated points instead of full sentences,” Steve says and then remembers what the point was. “Where’s the rest of the team?”

“No idea, I don’t live with them, you know,” Tony says.

“Maybe you should,” Steve says and realizes he’s just jumped off the tracks again. 

“What?” Tony stares at him with his one eyebrow arched and a puzzled look on his face. “What does that even mean?”

“I don-. Just forget it, where’s the rest of the team?” Steve tries again, thinking the third time might just be the charm or he’s out.

“Not here,” Tony says and stares straight ahead like he’s trying to ignore that Steve is even existing in the same space he is right now. He’s not sure how to take that since Tony invited him over, told him to dress up, and then put this ridiculous flower on the lapel of his uniform jacket. That is not regulation, he’s sure.

“Not here,” Steve repeats and lets it rest in the air like a weight that might drop on their heads at any moment, hoping Tony will flinch. He does not.

“Come, Captain,” Tony says as the elevator opens onto the garage level. He ushers Steve over to a white car. “My Audi R8, you like?”

Steve smiles, he always had a thing for a car, even in his day when he couldn’t even think about owning one. 

Tony caresses the line of the hood and says, “This little baby has some improvements even over factory. The factory version gets you a seven speed S tronic transmission with a zero to 60 clock in 3.3 seconds. That’s factory, with my revisions we get it in 2.3 seconds.”

“Is it safe?”

Tony throws back his head and laughs. When he finishes he shakes his head and says, “Get in the car, Gramps.”

They drive through Manhattan and Steve spends a lot of the time gazing up at the city skyline and watching the lights flicker and fade. It isn’t like he’s not used to a city – he’s lived in one all his life. What he’s not used to is the length of it. It stretches out in all directions and dimensions. 

Tony stops the car in front of a very pricey restaurant that even Steve’s heard of before. He knows he can’t afford it. Contrary to popular belief he did not get back pay, they don’t give you back pay after you’re declared dead. He fists his hands a little and decides he’ll just have to use one of those plastic cards he has in his wallet, if only for tonight.

Tony throws the keys at the valet and comments, “No, Ferris Bueller.”

Steve stumbles as he tries to ask what that was all about, but then he feels the gentlest of pressure on the small of his back as Tony guides him into the restaurant and without a word to the maitre’d they are escorted to a very isolated, very solitary table near the back. Steve studies the restaurant as they pass through it. Dark woods, tall backed chairs, double white table clothes with glittering faceted stemware. He doesn’t think he’s seen anything so beautiful and elegant in his life. He thinks of being like an elephant in a china shop. He’s bound to break something.

The host gestures to the chair and Steve settles in as Tony takes the one opposite him. It does not escape his notice that they are at a small table where the rest of the Avengers will not fit, and they are secluded away from the crowd.

“Tony?” Steve says. Is Tony trying to break bad news to him? Why the elaborate measures? 

Tony pats Steve’s hand and waves the waiter over. “Bring the wine and the appetizers, please.” He looks back at Steve and grins. “I hope you don’t mind, the dinner is already ordered.”

Steve frowns but tries to hide it, because he doesn’t want to hurt Tony’s feelings. He slips his hand from Tony’s and picks up the water glass. “This place is- I mean this place is fancy.”

“Fancy is one word for it,” Tony says and the waiter is opening the wine with Tony tasting it and giving his approval. 

Steve thinks his forehead might have a permanent furrow. “Tony?”

As the waiter complete pouring the wine and bread is set on the table with a little dish with oil and some herbs in it. What is that, really where’s the damned butter? 

Tony doesn’t touch the bread but urges Steve to do so. He picks up a slice and tears off a hunk. He’s seen this little oil on the plate trick before so he, at least, knows what to do with it. 

Before Steve can inquire again about their missing team mates, Tony chimes in, “So you don’t own a suit?”

Steve looks down at his dress uniform and says, “Not really?” 

Tony peers over his sunglasses and then decides to take them off. Steve’s grateful for that, since it is dark in the place, and it freaks him out a little how many people wear sunglasses inside these days. “Not really? That’s too bad, but I must say who can resist a man in a uniform.”

Steve wants to murmur, ‘just about everyone I know’, but he keeps his mouth firmly shut and peels at the bread roll. 

Tony reaches over and pats Steve on the arm, then squeezes his bicep once, and then pats again. “Nice, though,” Tony says. “Is this vintage?”

Steve hesitates because he doesn’t know if Tony is talking about his uniform or his bicep, but that’s ridiculous and then he chokes a bit on his bread. Tony slaps him on the back and Steve nods. “Yes?”

Why is everything a question when he answers Tony? Why is Tony treating him nicely? Don’t they hate one another? 

Tony points to the load of medals pinned to the uniform. “Lots of medals. Pretty much a hero then all the way through.”

“About that,” Steve says and ignores the fact that Tony reaches over and fingers a few of the bars. “I wanted to apologize for what I said on the Helicarrier, you know, before the whole Loki and New York thing.”

“I thought we were over that,” Tony says and sits back. “We’ve had all these meetings and briefings.” 

“I just wanted to be sure, you understood, how I think,” Steve says, though he has no idea how Tony thinks. Maybe that is why they are out on the town tonight. Maybe Tony wants to show Steve how he thinks. He hopes that Tony isn’t pulling a Bucky, trying to get him a date. 

“How do you think, Captain?”

That simple question freezes him. He looks up from the fork he’s playing with on the table (and why are there so many of them) to see the dark shade of Tony’s eyes as they follow him. “What do you mean?”

“I just wondered. You know a man of your origin, long lost time, how do you think?”

Steve feels the perspiration on his upper lip bead and he inhales then holds it before he releases the breath. He rubs away the sweat with the cloth napkin and says, “I’m just a regular fella.”

“Regular, you must have been special, somehow?” Tony folds his hands and leans his chin on them. “People see something in you, Erskine, Coulson, even Howard.”

“Oh,” Steve says. “That’s what this is about.” He feels the cold pit of disappointment when he looks at Tony, when he sees the fine sweep of his hair and then cut of his white jacket. The dark color of his shirt off sets the fire from the single candle on the table as it highlights Tony’s eyes into amber. 

“What?”

“I can tell you what you need to know, but-.” Steve shrugs. “No one’s ever reproduced the serum.” 

Tony’s eyes grow soft and he extends a hand to touch the bars again. “And no one ever will.”

Steve swallows hard because the sound of Tony’s voice has dropped into a deeper tone. Steve heats but is able to ignore it, as he picks up his glass of water and downs some of it. The appetizers come, but Steve has no idea what it is. He’s busy looking at Tony, mesmerized by the look of his eyes in candle light, by the wild and promising smiles he offers Steve. 

At some point during the evening, there’s a plate of food in front of him. He devours it all; he’s always been a kid from the depression and always will be. You don’t waste food. Tony continues to talk, asking Steve questions about his childhood, about life now. Steve is grateful and happy to share. He even gets in a few questions to Tony (how are the repairs to the Tower coming? How long have you known Fury? When did you find out they found me?) While they converse something happens and he looks up to see the fond smile from Tony.

He hadn’t realized his hands were shaking until he picked up his fork and knife to cut his filet. He drops them and glances at Tony. He has to ask, because this is too important not to know. “Why are we doing this?”

“Don’t you want to?” Tony says and touches him again, pushes back a stray tangle of hair from his forehead. 

Tony touches, Steve tells himself. He’s a tactile person, it means nothing. “No, I mean, yes, I mean I don’t know what-.” Steve clasps his hands on his lap and sits stock still.

“I wanted to know if a man from my father’s day could do this. Can you, do this?”

Steve clears his throat. His heart rams in his chest so much it hurts. “Do what?”

Tony clicks his fingers and the waiters appear to push the other tables – all the other tables which have mysteriously emptied – aside. Music starts in the background. It is big band stuff and Tony stands. “Dance.”

“D-Dance?” Steve focuses on Tony’s hand like it might be a viper. But he steels himself and thinks of all of the years he denied part of who he has been. Thinks of the nights he wanted Bucky so badly he ached with it. Thinks of all of the missed opportunities with Peggy, and then again, Bucky. For once he isn’t going to miss another opportunity. “Yes.”

He grasps Tony’s hand and he’s led out to the makeshift dance floor. The music is slow and easy, and Tony really doesn’t make him dance. They sway back and forth with Tony impossibly close and warm against Steve’s shoulder. 

“Is this okay,” Tony asks but as he speaks his breath brushes over Steve’s throat. It flushes him and he closes his eyes if only for a moment.

“It’s nice.”

“Nice?”

“Yeah, yeah, good.”

“Doesn’t wreck your 1940s sensibilities?” Tony says and waits for him. Their slow motion movements halt. 

“Of course it does, but-.” Steve stops and he can’t hear himself speak, can’t hear a thing over the drumming of his heart in his ears. He gazes down at the rise of Tony’s cheek bones, the gentle lines along his eyes, the scruff of his well-trimmed beard. He licks his lips as he stares at Tony’s mouth and then finds his way up to his eyes. 

“But?” Tony rasps.

Steve leans in closer; he can feel the air of Tony’s exhalations. Their lips are no more than an inch apart. “But, nothing, but everything.” He can’t stand it anymore and takes the chance, pressing his closed lips to Tony’s mouth. 

Tony’s hand somehow finds its way up, snaking around Steve’s neck to tug him closer. Steve doesn’t know how to kiss, not like this, not lingering and unhurried. Tony opens his mouth and Steve follows his lead. He tastes the smoke of the red wine on Tony’s lips, explores further and the sensations and tastes of sweet and bitter follow but what happens next rises from his chest and overwhelms him. It feels as if his heart stop beating entirely, it feels as if the world breaks in pieces and falls way, it feels as if every nerve trembles under his skin and he can barely sustain the ability to breathe. 

Before he realizes it, he has his hands on Tony’s face holding him while he tastes him, licks and suckles against his throat. With hands against his chest, Tony pries them apart.

“I take it that you’re interested?”

“Is this?” Steve says and his breath is short and he’s almost panting. He’s frantic with his need to know, with his want to know. “Is this a date?”

Tony smiles and it reaches his eyes in fantastic ways, lines his face. It is beautiful and perfect and Steve just wants him to say yes.

And he does.

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> So two weeks in and I am still sick. So this is my little ficlet to try and start writing again after that and finishing my monster Marvel Big Bang. I hope you like it. It actually does contain a few little hints about other themes I might explore in some other separate stories one day! No beta - all mistakes I own and dislike - so tell me so I can fix! Thanks.
> 
> For updates on my writing, some liberal stuff, and other crap follow me [tumblr](http://winterstar95.tumblr.com)


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